Previous Years' Course Catalogues

Critical and exegetical study of Hebrew text of Genesis. In addition to historical-critical issues, attention will be paid to Ancient Near Eastern parallels as well as to the book's themes, structure and theological significance.

Critical and exegetical study of Hebrew text of Genesis. In addition to historical-critical issues, attention will be paid to Ancient Near Eastern parallels as well as to the book's themes, structure and theological significance. Cross-listed to RLG3142H.

This course undertakes a study of modern critical problems of interpretation in the Book of Exodus. It focuses on establishing a translation, using text-critical apparatus. It examines the rise of source and form criticism as these have been used in the exegesis of Exodus. It analyses the way in which it has been proposed to combine these methods, and the problems inherent in that. It looks at some of the newer efforts to give priority to the deuteronomistic over the priestly hand in the final formation of the book. Canonical interpretation, as seen through a critical engagement with historical methods, will be reviewed (in the Old Testament Library commentary of BS Childs). This will also provide an occasion to examine the benefits/drawbacks of consulting the earlier history of interpretation. 

The study of liturgy as a praxis-based source of theology through a survey of seminal thinkers in classical and contemporary liturgical studies. A consideration of liturgical methodology and hermeneutics, the relationship between liturgy and theology, liturgy and culture, worship and ethics, as well as the impact of the ecumenical liturgical movement, feminist theology and emerging postcolonial perspectives.

The study of liturgy as a praxis-based source of theology through a survey of seminal thinkers in classical and contemporary liturgical studies. A consideration of liturgical methodology and hermeneutics, the relationship between liturgy and theology, liturgy and culture, worship and ethics, as well as the impact of the ecumenical liturgical movement, feminist theology and emerging postcolonial perspectives.

The study of liturgy as a praxis-based source of theology through a survey of seminal thinkers in classical and contemporary liturgical studies. A consideration of liturgical methodology and hermeneutics, the relationship between liturgy and theology, liturgy and culture, worship and ethics, as well as the impact of the ecumenical liturgical movement, feminist theology and emerging postcolonial perspectives.

The study of liturgy as a praxis-based source of theology through a survey of seminal thinkers in classical and contemporary liturgical studies. A consideration of liturgical methodology and hermeneutics, the relationship between liturgy and theology, liturgy and culture, worship and ethics, as well as the impact of the ecumenical liturgical movement, feminist theology and emerging postcolonial perspectives. Weekly 2-hour doctoral seminar, lectures, presentations, readings, major paper. Participation, seminar presentation and facilitation, 30%; major paper,70%.

The study of liturgy as ritual activity with a focus on the discipline of ritual studies and anthropology as a resource for liturgical scholarship and pastoral praxis. The course will consist of a close examination of seminal thinkers in ritual studies, their classic and contemporary works; consideration of methodological issues posed by social science methods; relationship between liturgy and ritual, theology and embodiment, worship and culture, ritual and ethics.

The study of liturgy as ritual activity with a focus on the discipline of ritual studies and anthropology as a resource for liturgical scholarship and pastoral praxis. The course will consist of a close examination of seminal thinkers in ritual studies, their classic and contemporary works; consideration of methodological issues posed by social science methods; relationship between liturgy and ritual, theology and embodiment, worship and culture, ritual and ethics.

The study of liturgy as ritual activity with a focus on the discipline of ritual studies and anthropology as a resource for liturgical scholarship and pastoral praxis. The course will consist of a close examination of seminal thinkers in ritual studies, their classic and contemporary works; consideration of methodological issues posed by social science methods; relationship between liturgy and ritual, theology and embodiment, worship and culture, ritual and ethics.

In this course, students will examine the writings of Anselm of Canterbury (1 033-11 09), an eleventh-century Italian thinker who became a monk, prior, archbishop and ultimately a leading theologian of his day. Scholars often treat Anselm as the first scholastic theologian, which to some degree is true. In this course, however, we will seek to understand Anselm the theologian as a constituent of the eleventh century, and of eleventh-century Anglo-Norman monasticism in particular. The focus of the seminars will be mainly on a close reading of the Cur Deus homo, a text that Anselm completed by 1098, after he had become archbishop in 1093. We will therefore explore two major contexts: (1) the world of eleventh-century monasticism of Normandy and (2) the world of the archiepiscopacy of Canterbury at the end of this same century. We will seek the read this text in light of the broad tradition of pre-modern treatments of Soteriology and the Incarnation, but also within the two more immediate contexts.

This seminar will examine the doctrine of individuality developed by the Franciscan thinkers John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham and the configuration of their thought as one or another form of metaphysical "individualism." It does so historically against the backdrop of both Franciscan spirituality and the contested "Aristotelian ism" of their university environment. The seminar is both an illustration of the value in and a critical reappraisal of a problem-historical analysis of
philosophy that centres upon philosophical accounts of our daily experience of both universality in the world, i.e., the fact that creatures come to us in kinds, and individuality, i.e., the fact that it is individual creatures that come to us in kinds.